Hi guys! Remember me? It's been a minute since I've blogged, huh? In fact, it has been a whole lot more than a minute. A whole nine months, in fact. Wow. I've never taken a blog break like this before. This extended break from blogging wasn't really a conscious decision, but I guess it's fair to say that after years and years of blogging pretty consistently, I am all blogged out. Still, maybe I'll pop back from time to time with quick book reviews and lists like this one - my 2019 Summer Reading List.
Let me know what books you can't wait to read this summer. I'm always looking for recommendations. I'd especially love some summer 2019 YA recommendations as this list is a little light on YA summer reads!
I love a good family saga (heavy on the drama) and The Most Fun We Ever Had, a multi-generational novel spanning forty years of highs and lows in the lives of the Sorenson family, certainly sounds like it fits the bill!
From the synopsis: At a family wedding, the four Sorenson sisters polka-dot the green lawn in their summer pastels, with varying shades of hair and varying degrees of unease. Their long-infatuated parents watch on with a combination of love and concern.
Sixteen years later, the already messy lives of the sisters are thrown into turmoil by the unexpected reappearance of a teenage boy given up for adoption years earlier - and the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons' past is revealed.
Weaving between past and present, The Most Fun We Ever Had portrays the delights and difficulties of family life and the endlessly complex mixture of affection and abhorrence we feel for those closest to us. A dazzlingly accomplished debut and an utterly immersive portrait of one family's becoming, it marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.
Release date: July 25th by W&N
The Virgin Suicides meets Picnic at Hanging Rock in Felicity McLean's The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, an Australian-set saga detailing the mysterious disappearance of the Van Apfel sisters and the summer that changed everything.
From the synopsis: Tikka Malloy was eleven and one-sixth years old during the long, hot, Australian summer of 1992. The TV news in the background chattered with debate about the exoneration of Lindy (“dingo took my baby”) Chamberlain. That summer was when the Van Apfel sisters--Ruth, Hannah, and the beautiful Cordelia--mysteriously disappeared. Did they just run far away from their harsh, evangelical parents, or were they taken? While the search for the girls united the small community, the mystery of their disappearance was never solved, and Tikka and her older sister, Laura, have been haunted ever since by the loss of their friends and playmates.
Now, years later, Tikka has returned home to try to make sense of that strange moment in time.
Part mystery, part darkly comic coming-of-age story, The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone is a page-turning read--with a dark, shimmering absence at its heart.
Release date: June 25th by Algonquin Books
I love a good summer thriller and this one about a killer who strikes every year on the same night in July sounds right up my street! Other books on my summer thriller reading list include Lock Every Door by Riley Sager and The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda.
From the synopsis: Every year, on the same night in July, a woman is taken from the streets of London; snatched by a killer who moves through the city like a ghost.
Addie has a secret. On the morning of her tenth birthday, four bombs were detonated across the capital. That night her dad came home covered in blood. She thought he was hurt in the attacks - but then her sister Jessie found a missing woman's purse hidden in his room. Jessie says they mustn't tell. She says there's nothing to worry about. But when she takes a job looking after the woman's baby daughter, Addie starts to realise that her big sister doesn't always tell her the whole story. And that the secrets they're keeping may start costing lives...
*****
The cover art screams summer as does the description which promises beach bonfires, boat parties and secret movie sessions. There's also summer romance (a secret affair, no less) and a mid-90's setting. Sold.
From the synopsis: Commencement meets The Graduate in this sparkling novel about a secret affair, the summer it all unravels, and the reunion a decade later that will be one woman’s happy ending or her biggest mistake.
Becc was the good girl. A dedicated student. Aspiring reporter. Always where she was supposed to be. Until a secret affair with the charming Cal one summer in college cost her everything she held dear: her journalism dreams; her relationship with her best friend, Eric; and her carefully imagined future.
Now, Becc’s past is back front and center as she travels up the scenic California coast to a wedding—with a man she hasn’t seen in a decade. As each mile flies by, Becc can’t help but feel the thrilling push and pull of memories, from infinite nights at beach bonfires and lavish boat parties to secret movie sessions. But the man beside her is not so eager to re-create history. And as the events of that heartbreaking summer come into view, Becc must decide if those dazzling hours they once shared are worth fighting for or if they’re lost forever.
Set in the mid ’90s and 2008, Amy Mason Doan’s Summer Hoursis a warmly told novel about the idealism of youth, the seductive power of nostalgia and what happens when you realize you haven’t become the person you’d always promised to be.
Release date: June 4th by Graydon House
*****
The Virgin Suicides meets Picnic at Hanging Rock in Felicity McLean's The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, an Australian-set saga detailing the mysterious disappearance of the Van Apfel sisters and the summer that changed everything.
From the synopsis: Tikka Malloy was eleven and one-sixth years old during the long, hot, Australian summer of 1992. The TV news in the background chattered with debate about the exoneration of Lindy (“dingo took my baby”) Chamberlain. That summer was when the Van Apfel sisters--Ruth, Hannah, and the beautiful Cordelia--mysteriously disappeared. Did they just run far away from their harsh, evangelical parents, or were they taken? While the search for the girls united the small community, the mystery of their disappearance was never solved, and Tikka and her older sister, Laura, have been haunted ever since by the loss of their friends and playmates.
Now, years later, Tikka has returned home to try to make sense of that strange moment in time.
Part mystery, part darkly comic coming-of-age story, The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone is a page-turning read--with a dark, shimmering absence at its heart.
Release date: June 25th by Algonquin Books
*****
I love a good summer thriller and this one about a killer who strikes every year on the same night in July sounds right up my street! Other books on my summer thriller reading list include Lock Every Door by Riley Sager and The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda.
From the synopsis: Every year, on the same night in July, a woman is taken from the streets of London; snatched by a killer who moves through the city like a ghost.
Addie has a secret. On the morning of her tenth birthday, four bombs were detonated across the capital. That night her dad came home covered in blood. She thought he was hurt in the attacks - but then her sister Jessie found a missing woman's purse hidden in his room. Jessie says they mustn't tell. She says there's nothing to worry about. But when she takes a job looking after the woman's baby daughter, Addie starts to realise that her big sister doesn't always tell her the whole story. And that the secrets they're keeping may start costing lives...
Release date: July 25th by Wildfire
*****
Understated but utterly compelling, The Rest of the Story from the queen of YA summer reads is a must-read if you're a fan of coming-of-age summer contemps. I've already read this one and I'll be delving into Dessen's backlist to get my summer contemp fix as my TBR is very light on 2019 YA summer releases. Got any recommendations for me? I'd love to hear them!
From the synopsis: Emma Saylor doesn’t remember a lot about her mother, who died when she was ten. But she does remember the stories her mom told her about the big lake that went on forever, with cold, clear water and mossy trees at the edges.
Now it’s just Emma and her dad, and life is good, if a little predictable…until Emma is unexpectedly sent to spend the summer with her mother’s family—her grandmother and cousins she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl.
When Emma arrives at North Lake, she realizes there are actually two very different communities there. Her mother grew up in working class North Lake, while her dad spent summers in the wealthier Lake North resort. The more time Emma spends there, the more it starts to feel like she is divided into two people as well. To her father, she is Emma. But to her new family, she is Saylor, the name her mother always called her.
Then there’s Roo, the boy who was her very best friend when she was little. Roo holds the key to her family’s history, and slowly, he helps her put the pieces together about her past. It’s hard not to get caught up in the magic of North Lake—and Saylor finds herself falling under Roo’s spell as well.
For Saylor, it’s like a whole new world is opening up to her. But when it’s time to go back home, which side of her will win out?
Release date: June 4th by Balzer & Bray
*****
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